California sued by Trump over tax returns law
SACRAMENTO — California’s first-in-the-nation law requiring presidential primary candidates to release their tax returns or be kept off the ballot was challenged in federal court Tuesday by President Donald Trump, the man who inspired its passage and whose attorneys argued that state Democratic leaders had overstepped their constitutional authority.
The lawsuit, filed in Sacramento, came exactly one week after Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the legislation. Two other legal challenges preceded the one by Trump and his 2020 reelection campaign. A separate effort by the state and national Republican parties and several California GOP voters was also filed in federal court on Tuesday. All of the lawsuits struck a similar theme by insisting California cannot impose limits on ballot access for presidential hopefuls.
“The issue of whether the President should release his federal tax returns was litigated in the 2016 election and the American people spoke,” Jay Sekulow, an attorney for Trump, said in a written statement. “The effort to deny California voters the opportunity to cast a ballot for President Trump in 2020 will clearly fail.”
The president has steadfastly refused to offer the public a glimpse of his annual income tax filings with the IRS, frequently insisting — without any proof — that he cannot do so while the returns were the subject of an IRS audit. Most of the Democrats now vying for their party’s nomination to challenge Trump next fall have already released some of their tax returns, though not all have met California’s standard of producing five years’ worth of information.
Senate Bill 27, which passed the California Legislature on a party-line vote last month, took effect as soon as Newsom signed it. It imposes the tax disclosure rule on presidential and gubernatorial candidates, and stipulates that only the names of candidates who comply will be printed on the statewide primary ballot. Because the state has moved up its presidential primary to early March, the deadline for submitting the tax documents is in late November.
The 15-page court filing alleges five counts of illegal action by California officials in enacting the tax returns law. Trump’s attorneys contend state can only issue “procedural regulations” governing its election for president. Even if the state did have a role, the attorneys wrote, California’s law “does not serve a compelling state interest and, in any event, is not narrowly tailored to that interest.”
National and state Republicans called the California law “a naked political attack against the sitting President of the United States” in their lawsuit. They wrote that SB 27 “effectively disenfranchises voters by denying their right to associate for the advancement of political beliefs and effectively cast a vote for the otherwise qualified candidate of their choosing.”